twenty-eight candles.: migrating from meizhou.

From Beijing to Shenzhen, a 3-hour flight.
From Shenzhen to Meizhou, a 6-hour bus ride.

As Hakka people, we have a tendency to migrate around, in a way, like nomads (or as my friend I had once said, yous a bunch of gypsies!), hence my family's move to Canada from India, and before that, the move to India from China. As a matter of fact, the Chinese characters for Hakka, 客家 [kèjiā], literally translates to "guest family", always being on the move is practically our innate nature!

So it's no surprise that every three years, like clockwork, my grandparents decide that Canada is too cold and take a getaway trip out to their native village of 梅州 [Méizhōu]. Last year I was fortunate enough to coincidentally be "in the neighbourhood" - and thus the chance of getting acquainted with another notch up in my family's history.

Follow my grandpa!

I guess my use of the term "village" is a bit outdated, considering Meizhou isn't really a village, anymore that is. I still remember my first visit to the "village". Being only 9-10 years old, I never knew any world outside of North America, or any world without toilets for that matter. The memories are hazy, but like any kid who's never experienced first-hand poverty or the "traditional" way of life, the whole time we were there I was itching to get home, where air-conditioning, television and toilet paper were all part of the real way of life. More than fifteen years later, I like to think I'm more appreciative of what I have, and of those sacrifices that were done in order to have what I have today.

As we took the one-hour cab ride from Meizhou to the real village, 鹧鸪村 [zhègūcūn], my thoughts (other than how weird is it that the cab driver speaks Hakka - a dialect that I've come to establish can only be spoken by someone who is somehow related to me) went out to my grandpa, having to sacrifice his dream of becoming a professor for the family business.

So here we were, where my grandfather spent his childhood days until he moved to India, around the age of 12. Him and my grandmother still stay in the same bedroom of his every time they come visit. The lack of real doors and an open concept roof make me wonder how pleasant it must be in the summertime. But in the dead of winter, with no heaters, it made me really appreciative of our house back home.

The entire village is extremely quiet, most of the year too, explains my grandfather. Like Tangra, the younger generations move out to the big city and only come home for the Chinese New Year (the real reason for my grandparents visit). And just as were leaving ourselves, my grandpa invited us to come back again, to celebrate his 80th birthday in the village (the real village), in another three years of course.